Radicals Break Up Berlin Coalition Over Crackdown

The radical Alternative List broke up Berlin’s ruling coalition Thursday in protest at the use of force to evict militant squatters from 13 occupied tenement buildings in the former Communist east of the German capital city.

The ecologist-leftist group, junior partner since 1989 in a Social Democratic-dominated city government, accused Mayor Walter Momper of using force as a substitute for a political solution to Berlin’s chronic housing shortage.

The List pulled out of the coalition just two weeks before a new city Parliament for the whole of reunited Berlin is to be elected.

The most serious wave of violence in Berlin for a decade, with street battles resembling a civil war, abated overnight after rioters enraged by the evictions had again attacked police, wrecked cars and looted shops.

Small groups of sympathizers rampaged in the west German cities of Cologne, Wuppertal and Muenster, smashing shop and bank windows during the night, police said.

Momper accused the Alternative List of choosing solidarity with violent radicals who attacked the police with gasoline bombs, stones and iron bars, rather than upholding the rule of law.

He said the city government is prepared to negotiate leases with peaceful squatters in 115 other eastern Berlin buildings and will work as fast as possible to renovate about 25,000 derelict properties there.